“Yesterday’s WWDC presentation started with Apple CEO Tim Cook asking for a moment of silence to honor the men and women killed in Sunday’s attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida,” Rick Tetzeli writes for Fast Company. “The keynote ended with Cook’s presentation of Swift Playgrounds, a way for Apple to encourage children to learn how to code. ”
“In between, Cook had exactly zero moments on the stage. This was definitely a case of ‘less is more,'” Tetzeli writes. “Cook ceded the stage to his team, and allowed them to present the most ambitious definition yet of the ‘Apple experience’ — one that is defined not simply by incredible devices, but by a seamless, increasingly omnipresent and intelligent platform experience accessed via those devices.”
“Cook’s gravitas and flat delivery serve him well when speaking on matters of moral import. Neither the Orlando tribute nor the Swift Playgrounds presentation came off as mere PR efforts. This seems to have been the keynote where Apple finally gave up on the idea that its CEO must be the center of the presentation,” Tetzeli writes. “This is surely a relief to Cook… But the keynote was even more notable because it made clear that Apple’s business concerns and goals are different — and more ambitious and complicated — than the ones Cook inherited from Jobs. Once upon a time, Jobs defined the ‘Apple experience’ as the merging of hardware and software in a single device in a way that no other company could match. Over time, that definition grew to encompass an iPad, a Mac, and an iPhone, and all that a user could accomplish because these were wirelessly connected. Cook is expanding that universe significantly.”
“If Apple can pull this off, Cook is taking Apple somewhere that’s far more complicated and all-encompassing than the device-centric ‘Apple experience’ that Steve Jobs was able to engineer. Cook’s goal, it seems, is for Apple to create the technology that will serve your needs all day long and everywhere you go — the devices are simply the (excellently designed) doorway to that world.”
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote on Monday:
The continuity aspects of all that was unveiled today are significant. More and more, macOS, iOS, tvOS, and watchOS are becoming intertwined to the users’ great benefit.